Your search

Ivo Carneiro de Sousa's text proposes framing Fernão de Magalhães's voyage (1519–1522) as a historical paradigm of "globalization," understood not as a sudden phenomenon, but as a long process of transformation in maritime circulations, economic exchanges, and cultural cross-fertilization between Europe and Asia. Drawing on a historiographical debate, the author articulates the expedition with the structuring rivalry between Portugal and Spain, demonstrating how the opening of the Atlantic to the Pacific reconfigured the terms of colonial and diplomatic competition, with particular impact on access to Southeast Asian commercial circuits and strategic zones in southern China. Methodologically, the article privileges a contextual and processual reading, relating Magalhães's route to juridical-political instruments (including the legacy of the Treaty of Tordesillas and subsequent disputes) and to the documentary and cartographic production that consolidated expansion rights. It concludes that the circumnavigation, beyond being a nautical event, functioned as a catalyst for an emerging European colonial order, in which Macau–Manila would emerge, over the long term, as one of the most striking axes of this Iberian global interconnection.

The article problematizes the recurrent historiographical readings of the first circumnavigation associated with Fernão de Magalhães, arguing that much of the academic production remains excessively centered on the factual sequence of the voyage and sometimes resorts to anachronistic frameworks that align it with other explorations and milestones of modernity. The author proposes shifting the focus to the historical-cultural elaboration that underpins the expedition, taking as its interpretive axis the work of António Pigafetta and its inscription within a broader “discoveries” program. Methodologically, a recontextualization is carried out along four vectors: the Iberian Renaissance context; the political-diplomatic competition between Portugal and unified Spain; the “global” nature of the undertaking, visible in the plurality of origins and the circulation of imperial ideologies; and the role of cultural representations that reconstruct mission, sovereignty, and colonial order. The analysis further emphasizes the memorial and literary dimension of the accounts, distinguishing the textual construction from the actual social experience of the crew, marked by unfulfilled expectations, religious guilt, and judicial proceedings for compensation. It concludes that Pigafetta not only records but organizes the memory and the mercantile and religious mentalities that helped legitimize Iberian expansion in the new world order.

This article analyzes the cartographic representation of the Moluccas, the Philippines, and the southern maritime "corridors" of the South China Sea in Portuguese maps produced between 1537 and 1571, interrogating whether such images resulted from "crossed representations" that expressed divergent interests. Starting from the premise that cartography functions simultaneously as a technical record and a political-economic instrument, the author proposes a comparative reading of sixteenth-century cartography: mappings associated with different information circuits (ports, mercantile networks, and Asian mediations) and spatial reorganizations resulting from geopolitical choices. The methodology combines iconographic and toponymic analysis, identification of design patterns (including the degree of detail and consistency between coastlines and routes), and historiographical contextualization based on the prior evolution of Portuguese cartographic knowledge. The conclusion is that, during this period, cartography not only "updates" nautical data but also reconfigures strategic areas according to the availability and type of information mobilized, revealing tensions between views oriented toward the control of spice trafficking and interpretations oriented toward alternative routes and regional complementarities. Thus, the Moluccas, the Philippines, and the southern corridors of the South China Sea emerge less as fixed geographical realities than as cartographic constructs where interests, informational capacities, and expansion objectives converge (and sometimes diverge).

The article reconstructs and interprets the historical links between Macau and the eastern part of Timor (from the 16th to the 20th century), arguing that, although historiography tends to privilege contemporary political contacts, these connections were sustained by maritime circulations, commercial networks, and information transfers that were insularly out of phase. The analysis articulates a contextual framework — including the reception of Timorese in Macau during the political-military crisis that postponed the refounding of independence (until 2001) — with a documentary investigation of a historical and cartographic nature. Along this path, the author highlights the manuscript attributed to Francisco Rodrigues, a pilot and cartographer who participated in the Portuguese reconnaissance voyages between Malacca and the Moluccas, arguing that the work combines nautical itineraries and a cartographic atlas that includes the first European representation of the island of Timor. By confronting the spatial drawing and the navigation route with the system of goods circulation, it concludes that Timor was not only known but also integrated into regional trade routes, with sandalwood identified as the axis of demand and economic valuation. The study therefore proposes a connective history in which cartography, luxury product, and maritime networks function as fundamental mediations between the two territories.

Ivo Carneiro de Sousa’s article reconstructs and interprets the trajectories, memories, and intellectual projects of Father Francisco Maria Fernandes (1935–2005) as a privileged avenue for understanding the historical connections between Macau and Timor-Leste. The central thesis holds that the priest’s pastoral and political-community action—especially his coordination of refugees, mobilization of international solidarity, and institutional defense of the Timorese clergy and Catholic Church—also constitutes a form of historical knowledge production, later interrupted in “unfinished studies.” Methodologically, the author draws on direct testimonies and typewritten texts gathered from conversations held with Fernandes himself during visits to Macau, articulating them with contextual references to decisive events in Timor between 1974 and the independence process (culminating in 2001). The main conclusions highlight: (1) the shift from fragmentary youthful memory to a critical perspective on the Revolution of 25 April and its local repercussions; (2) the memorial focus on the escalation leading to the civil war between UDT and FRETILIN, including striking episodes such as the death of Maggiolo Gouveia; and (3) the centrality of exile and settlement in Ainaro, which required linguistic and cultural adaptations. The article thus underscores the patrimonial and historiographic value of these notes for future research on Timor and its diaspora.

The article analyzes the photographic collection of Manuel Paulo de Sousa Gentil, governor of Portuguese Timor between 1919 and 1920, interrogating it as a possible “portfolio of the colonial order”. Based on the preserved core of 46 photographs (with typed captions), the author reconstructs, using an inventory of existing pieces and historical contextualization of the post-Manufahi wars period, how the circulation of Navy officers based in Macau and the republican program of “fomento” materialized in visual records. The methodology combines iconographic reading and documentary analysis of captions and provenances, articulating landscape photographs, traditional work, human types, games and amusements with images of exhibitions and agricultural experiments, as well as visits by the governor himself. It concludes that, although the original album probably gathered hundreds of images and later dispersed, the remaining sample allows identifying a narrative ordering that traverses ethnographies and developments, organizing the territory according to colonial categories. The collection thus tends to function as a pedagogical and commemorative device: it not only documents but frames people and practices within the horizon of a sovereignty that intends to present itself as “natural” and civilizing, culminating in scenes such as the “Catholic family”.

The article reinterprets the activities of St. Francis Xavier in Southeast Asia, challenging a teleological reading that organizes his "spiritual conquest" as a linear sequence of missions leading to China. Instead, the author proposes starting from the narrative "end"—Xavier's death on Sanchoão (1552)—to highlight how evangelization, solitude, and practices of mercy intersect with the social and economic dynamics of Portuguese enclaves. Through a historical-critical analysis of sources and historiography, the text examines the relative scarcity of Catholic conversions beyond Luso-Asian settlement circuits, emphasizing that, in his movements between ports and routes of the "Estado da Índia," Xavier's action tends to reach more easily young and female audiences, as well as Catholic minorities. The investigation also underscores tensions between moral preaching and commercial structures: many Portuguese merchants, associated with Asian networks and both formal and private enterprises, feared ethical interference in their established trade orders. It concludes that Xavier's discreet death is not merely a biographical detail but an indication of his marginal position relative to local economic elites and a model of apostleship sustained by isolation and charitable compassion, rather than by immediate and mass conversion results.

This article examines the corpus of letters attributed to Saint Francis Xavier during his final maritime itinerary (1552), with particular focus on "The China Letters" (1552) as a privileged source for understanding the "spiritual conquest" in the Far East. The author argues that the epistolary narratives, articulated between miraculous experiences, missionary frustrations, and strategic decisions, function simultaneously as devotional testimony and as an instrument of spiritual and political orientation for Jesuit action, in dialogue with the stage culminating in the formulation of directives by Valignano. Methodologically, the analysis combines a historiographical reading of the letters with contextualization using coeval accounts (including documentation employed in the canonization process), confronting episodes such as the transformation of "sea water" and the recovery of a child during the voyage. The letters are further situated within the specific context of the stopover at Sanchoão, a point of commercial contact between the Portuguese and Chinese junks, where missionary presence occurs under settlement restrictions and amid tensions among merchants. The conclusion holds that Xavier mobilizes the language of the prodigy to legitimize the mission and sustain the continuity of the project, while simultaneously rendering visible the structural uncertainty of access to the Chinese interior and the necessity of phased planning.